elnysa | voice (UN ????) | open to anon/misfire replies

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voice (UN ????) | open to anon/misfire replies

What's that poem about how the world ends? Fire, or ice.

Funny, really, we've been at the sharp end of both in recent weeks and here we all are, still muddling along, impossible to destroy. Like cockroaches, or Twinkies. Well. Most of us, anyway.

But it seems to me that ice is more a paralytic than an ending. Perhaps a precursor to slow cessation. A numbing, which - left long enough - allows one not to even notice as all the more vital components gradually freeze. Stasis, an ending without closure. They're the worst kind, I think.

But don't mind maudlin old me. I haven't been sleeping well.

At any rate. If you knew Byerly or Dorian -

Well, lucky you. They're gone now. Stasis. I thought some people might like to know and it turns out to be torture to have to say it over and over.

And it's colder here than I anticipated.

That's all.

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We are not alone.

[ This X-Files joke is wasted on Prior. John reaches out to close fingers around Prior's wagging hand, to lower it away from his face. ]

There are plenty of other things out there hoping to give us a hard time. I've just got one of those faces people love to shoot at.

[Silence, for a second.]

You might want to be very careful what kind of bar you announce that in.

[And then Prior's gone, lost to a round of helpless giggles. He grips John's hand back for moral support and tries (fails) to regain composure.]

And you make a terrible storyteller. This was supposed to be soothing.

Edited 2018-08-23 16:05 (UTC)

You didn't specify soothing, just reckless and fun.

[ And the sight of Prior giggling is too much. It breaks through John's attempts to restrain himself and he reaches out to loop one arm around Prior, tugging him into his side to try and satisfy his jittery urge to touch him. ]

I'm already too reckless without encouragement, so I'm told.

Mm, that's why I specified fun. But you think it's bad idea, apparently.

[Despite the dramatics that accompany this, Prior's easily caught and held. He curls into John's side, making a pillow out of his shoulder, head about chin-rest level.]

Or I imagine that's why you were telling stories. I wanted to fly. We could go to that bar where they play dares all night, have you been there? Five bucks to take a bath in a snowdrift.

Actually, I was telling the story because Atlantis flies. It's the thing the size of Manhattan that I flew.

[ He made a city fly, John thinks that's pretty cool. Still -- Prior curls into his side and John holds him there, satisfied, lets his fingers toy with his hair idly. ]

You mean Frosty Tap Cantina?

[ John isn't strictly sure mixing drinks and dares is going to be good for Prior's health, but he's not his dad or anything. If he goes with him he can pick him up off the floor if he vomits. ]

Is that what it's called. Someone in this place really needs to work on giving the local hotspots better names.

[Taking a bath in a snowdrift would probably kill Prior - something similar nearly did when they first arrived here, and his lungs still aren't quite back to their usual, sub-par norm. But he is going a little stir crazy with lack of occupation and the unchanging surroundings - he hasn't even made it out as far as the secondary ship people keep talking about. Loneliness is just another string in cabin fever's bow.]

And you took your time getting to that point. [Come on John you just tried to tell a story without a climax.] Where did you fly it to?

[ He's a terrible storyteller, he knows. Talking about anything is a struggle for him. He'd meandered away from the topic because Prior hadn't seemed super interested, and equally because he'd been distracted by his touches, the combination of how tactile he was being and his slip.

Still, John rallies -- leans his cheek against Prior's hair and tries. ]

New Lantea. See, we'd been trying to keep where the city was a secret. There were some bad guys looking for us, and we can put up a cloak -- a kinda shield that keeps the city invisible. They finally found us, though, and they set up this big laser that was firing down at us. Massively strong, and nothing we threw at the thing to stop it was leaving a scratch. It was draining all the power from our shields, so we knew we had to do something. At first, we tried submerging the city under the water. The water kind of dissipated things a bit, but we were still draining power. So we knew we had to get way out of range, and fast. We'll only have thirty or so hours before the shields fail, then the city will start taking damage. Between us all we hatch this plan, we get some of our shuttles up to temporarily throw an asteroid into the path of the beam, and then we boost all the power through the city to take off before it destroys it -- launch ourselves out into space to find a new planet to land on.

[Not disinterested, just struggling to hold the scraps of information together. This is better. This is... crazy, if he knew anyone a year ago who talked like this he'd think they were crazy, or at least talking about some sci-fi novel they'd just picked up. But it's exciting too. Not soothing at all.

Closing his eyes, he tries to imagine a whole city in the air. It's not really possible. Even in the middle of a city, its too hard to picture all of it at once.]

Well who needs movies. Did the people in the city know you were moving it, or were they going about business as usual - picking up whatever groceries Atlanteans eat, when all of a sudden the wind started rushing through their hair? What did it feel like for you?

[He'd look up, but that might shift John from the position he's settled in, and Prior's comfortable, here.]

They knew. Aren't exactly seat-belts on city-ships.

[ He reaches his free hand for one of Prior's, picks it up and interlaces their fingers -- flexes them. ]

You don't really think about moving your hands, about bending your fingers. You think about what you're doing it for, right? To reach for something, move it, pick it up, steady yourself. It's like that. It knows what I want it to do, and it feels like... I'm part of the ship for a moment. When I want it to start the engines, it does. When I want it to turn, it does.

Or the ship's a part of you. Like an extra limb. [He can't help tipping his head back, then, looking up at John from this new, close angle.] Like wings. It must...

[He lets his fingers slip from John's, tracing down across the pulse point of his wrist to make a bracelet round it, thumb and forefinger.]

It must feel wrong to be blocked off from so many things, here. I think it would feel like my hands were tied.

[ Wings.

John smiles as Prior slips to take hold of his wrist, studying his expression. ]

I spent most of my life without it, it only worked for me in the last five years.

[ He moves the hand around Prior's shoulders, the one not being restrained, and gently nudges a few strands of hair out of the man's face. ]

Guess it would be weird not to have it, though, now I'm used to it. Makes me more interesting, you know?

[Prior won't go so far as to say that, but-]

I like the way you talk about it. It's [Sexy, lets be honest, but Prior's always been drawn by passion, about anything.] like the way people talk about a lover. Something they get to touch that no one else does.

[He closes his eyes as John's fingertips brush low across his forehead, measuring the pulse at his wrist, beat by beat.]

I regularly think of all the hoops I'd jump through to get this thing out of my head. But then they took it away for a few days - here - and I'd never felt so hollow. The absence was enough to make me crazy.

[ John's pulse is definitely not at rest, it's picking up to something quicker despite how casual his tone is staying. ]

How long have you had it?

[ The thing in your head, Prior. How long has it been part of you? His fingers move to comb Prior's hair back again, and it's a idly gentle sort of gesture -- like he's petting a cat. Prior is curled up against him like a cat, after all. His claws are also just as sharp. ]

Three weeks, at home. Oh, things started turning strange after Louis left me, but three weeks since it - [Since she-

He doesn't talk about this, much, and not in any detail. It makes him nervous, almost like talking's the same as summoning and this is no place for a visitation. He pauses, regroups. Takes a steadying breath and brings his hand, still looped round John's wrist, up to curl in against John's chest.]

I thought I could outrun it, but it follows me, there's no getting away. So a year now, or close. Close to that.

That's a long time.

[ To have something like that, and then to lose it. He lets Prior gently hug his arm, keeps up the idle petting with his other hand. ]

Sounds like you don't really wanna outrun it anymore, though.

[ If the absence made him crazy, if he felt hollow without it. ]

People can be like that too. You think you'd do anything for a minute of peace from them, but you miss them anyway when they're not there to nag you and irritate you all the time.

Oh, I do. [It's quite vehement, even as he responds to the petting much the same way that a cat might, arching into it almost without thought.]

I want it gone. Most of it, anyway. The book. [He'd met Harper on the Threshold long before the prophecy was placed into him, so maybe that's different. Maybe that's just a gift granted to the dying, and the crazy, those overlapping inhabitants of liminal spaces.

Prior punctuates the points with fingertip taps across John's wrist. The lightest of touches.] I just don't know that I'd feel less crazy without it, anymore. And - well, I assume it's the only reason they woke me up.

[ The only reason? John's face scrunches at that, discontent. ]

Why would it be the only reason? You don't think they want you for your good looks and dress sense?

[ Sure, maybe Prior doesn't wield a gun and practice kickboxing -- that can't be the only sort of person you wake up for a new... colony of sorts, though. There are other skills you need too. ]

Mm, well. My looks are... not quite up to their former glory.

[He's only in the first flush of fading, an elegant wasting, but he was beautiful once and it's a sore point that there's no way back from here. But, no matter.]

But really, think about the people they've woken: soldiers, spies, magic workers. You think they'd wake me to give advice on effective pattern clashing?

Well if they only woke up soldiers then none of us would be taking care of ourselves and we'd all be dressed in nothing but black. Has to be a balance of skills, right?

[ His fingers fall back into a petting motion idly, smoothing hair out of Prior's face. ]

Anyway, if you were more good looking it'd be a public danger. So I consider it a service that you've dampened things down, reduces the risk of scandal and saves the rest of us feeling too bad about ourselves.

Idle flattery. I used to tell people I didn't like that.

[Byerly. He used to tell Byerly that he hated the flattery because everyone got that from him, and all Prior wanted was something real.

He's a little more open to platitude, now, while still dismissing it as nothing more.]

Are you going to stay until I fall asleep? Because I should warn you there's a danger things are going that way.

[ Idle flattery. He can't deny he's exaggerating a little, but... well, he still doesn't think there's anything strictly wrong with how Prior looks. He's tired, and thinner than he should be, but however animated and handsome he was before John still thinks he looks fine now. ]

That's my usual style, sneaking out while people are asleep.

[ Or, at least, that's the brand he pushes. ]

Who'd have thought you and my ex would have so much in common.

[Something of a private joke. There's not too much otherwise to compare John and Louis, at least so far.]

I'm sorry I'm flaking out on you, baby. So much for reckless and fun. I just - it's the alcohol, and I've barely slept in days.

[And John's warm, and his heartbeat's a soothing lull, and Prior never has been good at sleeping alone. He sighs and tips his head up enough to press his lips to the corner of John's jaw.]

After's fine. Just - stay 'til then, please? You're soothing. You are. Add that to your fighter pilot resume.

[ Getting drunk until he passed out is honestly more inline with what he expected would happen, so he hardly minds. Prior's lips brush against his jaw and John lets his eyes slip closed. Just - stay 'til then, please? You're soothing. You are.

As if John could leave. ]

As you wish.

[ It's criminal that Prior predates The Princess Bride. He squirms to move up the bed a little more, so he's laid out properly on it and propped up against the bedhead -- gesturing for Prior to make himself properly comfortable. ]

I've been told I make an excellent pillow.

[A tragedy of the highest order. But it seems a sweet sentiment anyway, even to his un-pop-cultured ears, and there's only a soft protest as John shifts away to stretch out on the bed. Prior leans on an arm, raising an eyebrow at that comment.]

Oh, by untold multitudes, I'm sure. You must have to fight off people wanting a nap on you.

[It's a little more awkward, a deliberate reassuming of a position they'd previously more or less fallen into. It makes it a little too obvious how intimate it was. Prior ends up a little less close than before, head tipped against John's shoulder but without that curled in contact of their hands, without his legs half tangled against him. It's enough.]

There's a line. I let you skip to the front.

[ He shuffles Prior once he rests his head onto his shoulder, coaxing him into relaxing properly like he was before -- both arms coming around him and face tipping a little into his hair. It's... too intimate, really, but at the same time John's already worked through this thought over the last ten minutes and accepted that. He'd rather have this closeness than not have it. He'd rather Prior trust him enough to comfortably slump into his arms than hide from him in a closet. ]

You get some rest, I'll be here.

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priorly - 2018-08-26 21:27 (UTC) - Expand

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